Web-only letters to the editor

Dispatch.com regularly will post letters to the editor that don't make it to print in The Dispatch. Unlike letters to the editor that appear in the newspaper, Web-only letters have not been edited.

Dispatch.com regularly will post letters to the editor that don't make it to print in The Dispatch. Unlike letters to the editor that appear in the newspaper, Web-only letters have not been edited.

Ohio's prisons

Though I am a retired Ohio citizen who has never been a member of a union, I am deeply concerned about the future of Ohio. For example, the day before Governor Kasich announced his budget, the Dispatch projected that selling the prisons would drop prison workers' pay by 30% or more and they wouldn't get health insurance. This diminished buying power would destroy families' economic stability and risk their health. Just imagine how people would cope with a 30% drop in their paycheck and no health insurance.

The local businesses suffer because workers just don't have money to buy the necessary goods and services.

The state and local revenues fall and essential services are likely to be cut.

Workers become desperate, take a second (or third job if they can find it) and quality falls.

In the end workers' lives could be endangered. Putting financially strapped workers in charge of inmates could create a disastrous culture in the prisons.

I am deeply troubled that the proposed budget would be balanced on the backs of prison workers. And, think of it. This is all for one-time money.

K. Sue Foley, Columbus

Class sizes

I see where Mr. Sommers recently defended cuts to educational spending because he understands that there is not necessarily a relationship between class size and achievement. It is very clear that he has gathered his information from a limited number of sources and has listened only to those whose information supports his views. There are circumstances where learning is less impacted by class size, but it is also true that a 50-1 class ratio becomes much more challenging when the 50 students are from diverse backgrounds and at very different places from a learning perspective. He should really try to individualize the learning experiences to meet the needs of half that number.

This, once again, seems to be an excellent example of politicians making decisions that impact large numbers of people (students, parents and teachers) and all primarily for the purpose of supporting a political agenda. Politicians have clearly lost sight of the notion that they are public servants and ought to do what is needed to advance the greater good of the society as a whole. It is not about WINNING to advance your political agenda and solidify power for your party. I challenge Mr. Sommers, as well as many other politicians, to really look at what goes on in schools. It would also be a good idea if they would have to take and pass any tests they advocate must be taken and passed by either students and/or teachers.

James Bailey, Columbus

Public-employee unions

Collective bargaining with public employee unions should be curtailed or abolished. The time of the public employee unions has passed: they were formed ostensibly to guarantee worker's rights and bring compensation equity to public employees. Their concerns of the past 50 years are now addressed in public legislation--workplace safety, discrimination, pay/benefit disparity with the private sector no longer are issues. Their compensation demands have resulted in pay/benefit levels that outstrip those of the private sector. Those demands jeopardize the ability of governments at all levels to meet the basic safety and education needs of the taxpayers. The unions use the threat of strike--or binding arbitration--to hold our citizens hostage, disregarding the reality that the democratic process dictates what financial compensation is available to public sector employees. Public sector unions, unlike their counterparts in the private sector who understand the impact of their demands on the future of the business that employs them, disregard the reality that their pay and benefit demands are met only by increasing the tax burden on citizens and businesses.

Public sector employees provide services of great value, but they generate no new money, they make nothing, they are consumers of public funds. We taxpayers, who do generate revenue, must pay the bill. In this context, public sector unions are obsolete, if, in fact, they should ever have been allowed. Even Franklin Delano Roosevelt, as liberal an icon as this country has produced, recognized that there is no role for collective bargaining in the public sector.

Public sector unions exist today for only one reason: to empower union leaders who use taxpayer dollars (in the form of union dues, often mandatory) to fund their political agendas and contribute to candidates who support those agendas. They form those agendas without consulting or even regarding whether the majority of union members or the larger group of American citizens agree.

I support all efforts to restrict the influence of public employee unions, or remove them via legislative action altogether.

Alan Clune, Newark

How much is enough?

It is hard not to pick up the paper or hear the news these days without being overwhelmed with human need, but I wonder if this isn't somehow a blessing in disguise. Maybe instead of thinking about people and issues in an "either/or" way, we might start thinking about them in a "both/and" way. Maybe the people with so much money (and how much money do people need to be happy), will begin to invest it in ways that make others able to survive. Maybe the ways that we have lived beyond our means in many areas will enable us to ask ourselves what really is important and what is just wasteful. Maybe our way of life has become excessive in a way that makes us the kind of people we really do not want to be. Maybe we have a chance right now at getting out of our self-centeredness and connecting with our neighbors who just can't do it alone anymore. Maybe, just maybe, we will find our true selves again and see that love is worth much more than a new IPad or a bigger TV, or a new car or a bigger house. There is much more to life than just winning all the time, at least in the shallow way I think we define it. We are all the same kind of human beings, no matter where you come from. A world being shaken might shake us up enough to ask ourselves what life is really all about. I hope that answer is more than just taking care of ourselves and no one else. It really is true that one person can change the world, but I hope many of us will just try to do a more meaningful and loving job on our corner of it. Me included.

Rhodara Shreve, Gahanna

'Help' from the county

I am disgusted at the outcome of the case of AbdulSalaam v. Franklin County Childrens' Services, as the family sued the caseworker and the county for the heavy-handed and in my opinion unfair treatment she and her children received when going to Childrens Services for help with an unruly teen son.

This mother went to them to prevent her son from falling into harm, after undoubtedly exhausting every safe and reasonable method of discipline. Childrens Svs. portrays themselves as our friends who are there to "help" - they are at your disposal.

What it meant to the AbdulSalaams was more like, "What we do not understand or agree with, we at Childrens Services will obliterate and destroy, demonize it in written record, and answer to no one." They have done this time and again with home schoolers, Fundamental Christians and others. They threw the girls into foster homes without attempting to make any changes in the AbdulSalaams' home life. Childrens Svc. just ripped the family from her bosom,. Later they made some allegations that Mrs. A. could fix easily, but still kept the children. When Mrs. AbdulSalaam asked that AT LEAST could the girls go to a Muslim home, none could be found!

Then we have Director Fenner crying that there are no Muslim families signed up to take in foster children. Perhaps if Childrens Services could muster up some trust in the Muslim community, they would be able to have Muslim foster families ready. After hearing how they treat a God-fearing, home-schooling, child-centered Muslim family- - - I would not hold my breath for those Muslim foster families.

Without any due process, without any attempt to correct issues working too much at the family business, with no attempt to find out where the girls were academically, they swept the children away and into Christian homes where they were made to worship with the foster family. I seriously wonder how they have the power that they wield. I have seen some of the worst abuses of power in the Childrens Services franchises, and they still keep telling us they are our FRIENDS ... it reminds me of the old saw: "With friends like them ... who needs enemies?